1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a medicine packaging apparatus for packaging solid medicines in non-powder form, such as tablets in a narrow sense, capsules, and pills.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medicine packaging apparatuses for packaging tablets for each one dose with a package sheet based upon information shown in a medical prescription have been variously provided and used in medical institutions such as hospitals and dispensing pharmacies. Such medicine packaging apparatuses include those having a function of supporting a so-called manual distribution operation of the tablets (e.g. refer to Patent Documents 1 to 3). Specifically, a plurality of tablet housing chambers are arranged in matrix form on an upper side of the apparatus, and an operator manually feeds tablets into these tablet housing chambers. In the vicinities of the respective tablet housing chambers, numbers corresponding to an order of packaging are indicated. The operator performs the manual distribution operation referring to these numbers and dosaging times indicated in a medical prescription. Upon completion of the feeding, a shutter constituting bottoms of the tablet housing chambers is opened, resulting in that the tablets inside the respective tablet housing chambers drop into corresponding tablet discharging chambers provided in a movable medicine discharge section. The tablets inside the tablet discharging chambers are sequentially supplied to the packaging apparatus. The configurations of the shutter and the medicine discharge section are disclosed for example in Patent Documents 4 and 5.
As the above-described matrix-manner arrangement of the tablet housing chambers, typically, three or six (a multiple number of three) tablet housing chambers that correspond to a three times daily dosage (e.g. taking a certain medicine three times a day, in the morning, afternoon, and evening) are arranged in an anteroposterior direction (row direction) seen from an operator who performs the manual distribution operation, and a plurality of (e.g. seven, corresponding to the number of days of a week, or a multiple number thereof tablet housing chambers are arranged in a lateral direction (column direction) seen from the operator (refer to Patent Document 1). However, when this typical matrix-manner arrangement is adopted, in a case where the dosaging times described in the medical prescription are other than a multiple number of three, namely in a case of two times daily dosage (e.g. taking a certain medicine twice a day, in the morning and evening) or in a case of four times daily dosage (e.g. taking a certain medicine four times a day, in the morning, afternoon, evening, and at bed time), positions of tablet housing chambers into which specific tablets are to be fed vary among the respective column. This may result in significant deterioration in operability, causing feeding errors.
Patent Documents 2 and 3 propose a configuration provided with a guiding means such as an indicator or an LED lamps to support the manual distribution operation. However, such guiding means requires relatively complicated control accompanied by processing of electric signals based on such information as dosaging times shown in an inputted medical prescription, thereby increasing cost.
When being opened, the above-mentioned shutter is receded to rear sides of partition walls for partitioning adjacent tablet housing chambers. In other words, the partition walls between the tablet housing chambers are necessary to have enough size (widths in a plane view) so as to hide the shutter. However, the partition walls having such large size causes that reduction in size of the medicine packaging apparatus cannot be realized.    [Patent Document 1] Japan Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 10-323382    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent No. 2866543    [Patent Document 3] Japan Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2004-203433    [Patent Document 4] Japan Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2004-115059    [Patent Document 5] Japan Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2004-83097